If you are looking to grow your business, digital marketing is an essential component of an effective growth strategy. But before we dive into the how’s, let’s first talk about the what and the why’s – what is digital marketing and why is it better than traditional marketing.
Digital marketing is a broad topic but to simply put, it refers to promoting your product or service online through a variety of channels (such as organic search, social media and email) and making use of different practices (SEO and email campaigns for example).
In a nutshell, digital marketing refers to marketing efforts that involve electronic devices.
Now, let us dive into why is digital marketing better than traditional marketing – three reasons:
First – you can reach as many customers. Customers are online. In fact, 5 billion people use the internet and on average people spend six hours and 58 minutes per day online.
By showing up in places where people spend their time, you will be able to introduce your product or service and help potential customers be familiar with it. In other words, digital marketing makes it easy to build brand awareness so customers will choose you over your competition.
With traditional marketing, it is hard to build awareness since TV commercials and radio ads are expensive. Only big businesses can afford it, making it hard for small businesses to compete in reaching customers.
Second – you are making data-driven decisions. Digital marketing has data, metrics and analytics that will ultimately provide you an insight on what works and what does not.
You will know exactly the performance of your marketing campaigns so you can do more of what converts and do less of what is not effective, helping you see results faster and saving you time, effort and money in the long run.
Third – you’ll be able to reach your target customer. With digital marketing, getting your business in front of your desired customer is quick and easy.
Being able to target specific customers is one of the biggest upsides of digital marketing that traditional marketing cannot match.
Not only that, digital marketing makes it easy for marketers to learn about their customers. Facebook for example, will not only give you the demographic profile but as well as their jobs, interests and behavior of your audience.
Now that you know the advantage of digital marketing, let us dig into how digital marketing can help in growing your business.
Implement a Marketing Strategy Tailored to What You Want to Achieve
Each business has different goals and objectives and the best way to ensure the success of your digital marketing efforts is by working with the right agency that understands your industry and fits your needs.
As mentioned earlier, digital marketing is a broad domain that is composed of a variety of channels and utilizes numerous practices – it may sound overwhelming especially if you are new but rest assured, you do not need to do every single one of those.
A digital marketing agency will help figure out which channel you should be present and active so that you can meet your target customers. From there, they will be able to craft which practices to use.
For example, if you are an offshore software development company for fintech and wants to generate leads, then a digital marketing agency will craft a digital marketing strategy around LinkedIn (not Facebook, Instagram or Twitter) because your target customers are businesses and LinkedIn is the channel where you can reach them. From there, a digital marketing agency will make use of different practices such as an ad campaign or a cold outreach to meet your end goal of gaining leads.
Maximize Platforms and Tools for Your Marketing Advantage
If your digital marketing strategy in growing your business is centered on Facebook, then you have to learn how to use the platform’s Business Manager and Ads Manager.
If you will be implementing SEO, short for search engine optimization, then you have to master the tools that will help you such as Google Analytics to track and monitor your website’s performance, Ahrefs and SEMrush to perform keyword research, domain analysis and site audit.
If it is email marketing, then you have to learn how to use the platform and there are many out there such as MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, Sendinblue, GetResponse and Mailchimp.
A digital marketing agency does not only know how to use those platforms and tools but they are experts in it. In other words, they stay up-to-date with the updates and changes, and they know the intricacies of the platform or tool, giving you the best results.
Better Audience Targeting
One advantage of digital marketing versus traditional marketing is it is backed by data which helps you make better decisions in growing your business. The biggest upside of a digital marketing agency is their in-house database which is very handy as digital marketing campaigns rely heavily on data.
Due to Apple iOS privacy updates, government regulations and intense competition between advertisers, targeting is getting harder and more expensive in many advertising platforms.
By working with a digital marketing agency that has numerous clients, their in-house database comes in handy so you can have better audience targeting which means:
- Maximizing your campaign reach so you show your offer in front of your desired audience
- Optimizing your ad campaign budget so you can save money and get the best results
Final Takeaway
Digital marketing may seem complicated and overwhelming but that is what agencies are for – to help you navigate the digital marketing world in growing your business. Hence, it is important to choose a digital marketing agency that has worked in your industry before and understands your business’s goals and objectives.
A good digital marketing agency will bring certainty, clarity and direction in your digital marketing strategy so you implement an effective digital marketing plan which ultimately helps you avoid wasting your time and resources so you can get results faster.
